Stephanie Mittman (37 page)

F
OUR HOURS OF SURGERY
. T
WO HOURS OF
checking vitals and ensuring circulation. Ten hours of changing drains and doing little more than watching for a movement behind Abby’s eyelids, or a twitch of her fingers or a sign that his wife would ever return to him.

Nothing. Had she died on the table and did her body not know it? Her heart continued to beat as strongly as ever. Her color was good. And yet she was as unresponsive to his pokes and prods as she was to his words of love and encouragement.

“Any change?” Bartlett asked, standing now at the door of the church where he made certain that no one came close enough to Abby to give her weakened system any more to fight.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Bartlett told him. “Not yet.”

“When do we know the results of what I’ve done?” Seth asked.

“I tell you,” Bartlett said, “all brain surgeries should
be done by the husband of the patient. If any one of my patients trusted me the way that woman trusts you—”

Her last words—before the ether had put her under—were
Don’t look so worried. I’m not
. And then she’d asked him to come closer, and she’d kissed him.
Till later
, she’d said.

Till after
, he’d agreed.

Well, it was damn long “after” and he was losing his mind. A million times he told himself that their wedding night had made her worse. That they’d have had more time if he’d never left Eden’s Grove. That he should have married her years ago. Everything but that he never should have operated.

She had been in pain. What choice had there been?

Yet another of the Mergansers came to the door. Pru, her children in tow, from what Seth could see from his vantage point at Abby’s side.

He couldn’t make out Ephraim’s words, but he knew well enough what the man was saying—
Too soon to know anything. Vitals good. Reason to hope, blah, blah, blah
.

All day they came, and all day Ephraim gave out the same information. Seth sent him home at dinnertime, and after leaving a note on the door for well-wishers Ephraim finally left him alone with his wife.

“You deserved better than this,” he told her, taking her limp hand within his own. “You deserved the sun and the moon and all those other trite things that men promise women if only they’ll marry them.

“I wish I knew what to promise you to make you
wake up,” he said, checking the bandages on her head and changing them yet again for the sterilized ones that Bartlett had brought with him from Boston, more a souvenir of another life than something he had ever really expected to make use of again.

“Abby?” He could have sworn she flinched slightly when he touched the mixture of carbolic acid, vaselini, and wax to her incision to stop the oozing. “Abby! Blink, wiggle a finger, swallow! Do something so I know you hear me, so I know you’re still here!”

In the empty church his voice echoed, mocking him, as Abby lay still as a corpse.

He lit the lamps that they had hung from the rafters so that it shone in the church as if it were the middle of the day, and as he turned each one up he talked to her, nonsense at this point, but his need to hold on to her was greater than his fear of being ridiculous.

“So, when you’re all better, I thought we might take a little trip. I know you like St. Louis, so maybe there. Or maybe to the Pacific Ocean?” he asked, gave a moment for her response, and then continued. “I do think you would like the ocean. Or maybe you’d prefer to go back East. I could take you shopping in New York City and you could model the highest fashions for me. What would you think of that?”

He talked until he was hoarse, paced until his legs could carry him no more, and then he sat in the chair beside the operating table on which Abby still lay, and fought his heavy eyelids.

“Maybe I’ll just rest for a moment,” he conceded. “As long as you’re sleeping, anyway.”

He must have nodded off for a moment or two, because when he heard the knock at the church doors, it made him start and he nearly fell out of the chair.

“Abby?” he asked, checking her again, making sure that she was still alive, wishing she would open her eyes and know him just one more time.

Who was he kidding? He wanted the rest of his life with her. He wanted them to have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He wanted to rock on a porch with her and watch the sunset and die holding her against his body in a bed that had all but given out beneath a million nights of loving.

The knock came again and he came to the door and spoke through it. “What?” he called through the door.

“It’s Jed,” Abby’s brother called. “Jedidiah Merganser. Abidance’s brother.”

“She’s still sleeping, Jed,” he said. He looked at his watch. It was nearly five-thirty in the morning. “Go back to bed.”

“I haven’t been to bed. I’ve been working. For the sunrise service. You know.”

“Yes, Jed, I know,” he said, having completely forgotten that this would be Sunday, Easter Sunday.

“Can I talk to Abby?”

“She’s still sleeping, Jed,” he repeated. Poor Jed. So many parts of his mind had never matured, but his heart was fully formed.

“Can you give her a message for me?”

“What is it?” Seth asked, anxious now to change Abby’s bandages again and look for any reason to hope.

“Tell her to look out the window.”

“Out the window? For what, Jed?” he asked.

“For the miracle,” Jed answered. “I gotta go.”

“It’ll be a miracle if she can look out the window,” Seth muttered to himself and he made his way slowly back down the church’s aisle toward Abby. The longer it took him, the longer he could believe that when he got there she would open those dazzling hazel eyes and smile that gut-flipping smile of hers.

“So it’s time to check your bandages again,” he said as he approached her. “Don’t want any infections impeding your progress after the wonderful job I did.”

He tilted her head slowly away from him to get at the edge of the bandage, wondering how with no hair, with her life on the line, she could still be so incredibly beautiful.

“Oh …” It was a tiny voice, sad, soft.

And clear as a bell! He ran around the table, afraid to move her head, afraid to speak, afraid to hope.

Her eyes were open and she appeared to be looking out the window.

“Abby! Oh, God, Abby!”

“Am I dead?” she asked softly, looking past him to continue staring out the huge church windows. Was she seeing anything?

“Well, if you are, so am I,” he said, not caring that he was crying freely. “Can you see me? Can you see anything, darling?”

“
Darling?
Now I know I’m dead. Jed’s flying and you’re calling me darling.”

He turned to look over his shoulder and sure enough, there was Jed, in his ridiculous machine, floating just outside the church windows, throwing white
crosses that sounded like rain as they hit the window-panes.

He turned back to her just as her eyes were closing, a wrinkle furrowing her brow.

“Does something hurt you?” he asked, putting the back of his hand against her forehead to make sure there was still no sign of fever. “Are you in pain?”

“There’s no pain in heaven, silly,” she said. “But I am hungry. I didn’t think there’d be hunger in heaven, did you? Why are you here, anyway? You didn’t kill yourself when I died, did you?”

“Abby, honey, you’re not dead. You are very much alive.” He ran over to the window and opened it in time to hear the most beautiful church bells he had ever heard. Somehow they had managed to uncrate the bells and set them up temporarily in the street, just far enough off the ground to ring them.

“She’s hungry!” he shouted out the window to anyone who could hear. “She says she’s hungry!”

He heard the crash and Jed’s shout of pain, and figured that Ephraim Bartlett could set Jed’s bones.

“Tell me how you feel,” he said, coming back to her. “Does anything hurt? Are you able to move your fingers and toes and—”

“Mostly I’m tired, Seth,” she said dreamily. “Would it be okay if I just rested a little?”

He touched the underside of her foot and watched as her leg reacted, jumping just as it should. There would be time enough for planning and dreaming, all the years to come. “You go ahead and rest, Mrs. Hen-don. We have the rest of our lives to catch up.”

S
ETH HELPED HIS WIFE OFF THE TRAIN, NOT BECAUSE
she needed any help but because it was the proper thing to do. Not that their marriage so far had been close to proper. Oh, no, not with Abidance Merganser Hendon and that strong head of hers—insisting on signing the register at the hotel in Boston herself instead of letting him see to such matters.

And demanding that he perform his husbandly duties nearly every night for three months!

Well
, he thought—and the thought brought a smile to his lips—that was the price one paid for marrying a woman so much younger than himself.

“And just what does that Chesire-cat grin mean, Dr. Hendon?” his wife demanded, her body sliding down his as he lifted her off the last step and set her down on the ground.

Before he could answer her, his new family surrounded them, cooing over how well Abby looked, Patience obviously trying to see if there was any hair
under Abby’s hat, Clarice touching her daughter’s forehead with the back of her hand as if checking for temperature, Ezra beaming, and several children wrapping themselves around her legs.

“Let’s not knock your aunt Abby over,” Seth warned them, and Abby shooed
him
, not them, away.

“Don’t coddle me, Dr. Hendon,” she warned him, as if she had ever let him do that, as if she ever would.
Cuddle, yes
, she had told him as they lay in bed at the hotel in Boston,
coddle, never
.

Well, he’d see about that once he had her ensconced in Joseph Panner’s old—no, make that
their
new home. And if she intended to help him as a nurse of sorts, she darn well better learn to listen to his instructions.

“At least sit down,” he begged, rather than ordered, her.

She pinned him with those big eyes of hers and he shrugged and left her to her family after receiving his own handshakes from Jed and Ezra, and pecks on the cheeks from Patience and Clarice.

On the outskirts of the circle stood Ephraim Bartlett and Ansel, both of them watching the exchange between Seth and Abby with obvious amusement.

“I see you have her well in hand,” Ansel teased. “She seems to be very much our old Abidance.”

“That she is,” Seth said, and allowed himself a satisfied sigh.

“And Carter at Mass. General?” Bartlett asked, taking Seth’s hand and shaking it with both of his. “He said she was in the clear?”

“He did,” Seth said. “And he sent his regards and his respect for a job well done.”

“I did nothing,” Bartlett said. “You—”

“I was simply your hands,” Seth said. “She’d be dead now,” he started to add, but the rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat with a thousand unshed tears he’d had to hold back. He’d have lost her if not for Ephraim, and he’d be forever grateful.

“Been holding on to this for you,” Ephraim said, handing him the Dickens book that Abby had given to Seth years before. “Thought you’d want it in the new place.”

“Thanks,” Seth said, and thought about someday reading it aloud to his children, his and Abby’s children. Talk about miracles! The doctors in Boston had said that they saw no reason why Abby wouldn’t be able to have all the children she wanted, though they did say something about why in the world she’d married Seth and why she would ever want to bear his kids. And then they’d all had a good laugh—all but Seth, who had to wonder why indeed his Abby loved him.

He wasn’t good enough, kind enough, even smart enough for her. But he would love her enough, or try to, for the rest of their lives.

Abby managed to extricate herself from her nieces and nephew and make her way to Seth’s side, where she belonged. She took a hug from Ansel that was gentle and careful, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was truly all right, and a bear hug from Ephraim, who apparently was sure she was.

“Where’s Emily?” she asked. “And Pru?”

“Emily’s tending to your very newest niece,” Ansel said proudly. “Ephyra Abidance Merganser, named for the man who helped save you and, well …”

“Don’t you give Seth any credit?” she asked, delighted to see the blush in Dr. Bartlett’s cheeks at having a child named for him.

“He got you,” Dr. Bartlett said. “What more could he need?”

“He’ll need a child named after him,” she said simply. “And I’m—”

Seth blanched, grabbing her arm and holding her as if she were suddenly made of glass. She didn’t know why he was so surprised. After all, he was a doctor. Surely he knew where babies came from.

“… Working on it,” she finished. “Don’t go to pieces yet, Seth.”

“Then you’re not? …” he asked, a bit of color returning to his cheeks, but the smile gone from his lips.

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she answered, not being coy but honest.

“Maybe you should—” Seth began, but Ansel and Dr. Bartlett were laughing so loudly at him he didn’t have the nerve to finish.

“Can you imagine when she knows for sure?” Ansel asked Dr. Bartlett, poking him in the ribs. Apparently the two had become fast friends while she and Seth were back East. That was nice, since they were to be neighbors now that Ephraim would stay in Seth’s old place and she and Seth would move into Joseph Panner’s mansion, converting it into the hospital Seth wanted so much.

And from her father’s letters, it was clear the town wanted both the hospital and Seth to run it.

The whole group began to drift down the street, past
the church, where they paused to hear the music drifting out the open door. Someone was singing, and Abby climbed the steps of the beautiful new church to see Prudence pounding at a magnificent new organ and singing an alleluia at the top of her lungs.

“Boone sent it,” her mother said, speaking right up against her ear so that Abby could hear her over the music. “He struck a mother lode! And he’s coming home.”

Abby didn’t think she could be happier. And then Seth came up behind her, his arms encircling her, and when the music finally stopped, he whispered softly into her ear.

“We’re home, Mrs. Hendon. Welcome home.”

And she was happier still.